I'm sad. I wait every month for my B.P. magazine, and I keep getting more and more dissapointed. Is it just me or have they really gone insane with the advertising? All I see are ads, and if it's not an ad, it's a gear review which seems like an ad anyhow, or a short article on the gear a certain bass player uses. Have I just outgrown the magazine? Have they run out of useful information to print? Does the magazine seem to be going downhill bigtime? Do others feel the same way I do?

I just recieved a letter about having to renew my subscription.. (they better send those 3 mags. that I´ve yet to recieve until my sub. wears out!).. and I don´t think I´ll renew...

I hardly find anything useful in this magazine anymore.. there are some good interviews, but not enough to keep paying for it... (although I really like the "getting to first bass" on the last page )

and I NEVER recieve my mags. on time.. I don´t know whether it´s BP´s fault or the icelandic post office, but I never get it on time.. I got march 3 weeks ago, and then april 2 weeks ago... and before that I there had been 2 months since I got feb... and I never recieved my Jan. issue.. I got didn´t get my first issue, sent them an e-mail... got two, got two of the next issue also... had to wait for months, got my next issue...

it´s simply just not worth it!

but of course, that´s just my opinion....

so to answer your question Joe, yes, I also think BP has gone downhill.

Well, all I can say is be grateful that you've got a magazine devoted to bass playing. In England, we used to have Bassist, but it folded a while ago. I only ever bought one issue - about 50 pages long, and the first sentence I read in it was something along the lines of "Nicky Wire is possibly one of the best rock bassists of the last twenty years...". Suffice to say, I realised then that it wouldn't satisfy my requirements.

Originally posted by yawnsie Well, all I can say is be grateful that you've got a magazine devoted to bass playing. In England, we used to have Bassist, but it folded a while ago. I only ever bought one issue - about 50 pages long, and the first sentence I read in it was something along the lines of "Nicky Wire is possibly one of the best rock bassists of the last twenty years...". Suffice to say, I realised then that it wouldn't satisfy my requirements.

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oh yeah?

I picked up bassplayer, opened it and saw a tab for a christina aguilera song....

I think that BP is a GREAT bathroom mag. I keep about a dozen in the cabinets in each bathroom... Whenever I'm 'resting' for a significant amount of time, out comes a BP. I kinda think they're like a Reader's digest in that a few months down the road, you can re-read an interesting article and pull something new out of it... YMMV

I outgrew Bass Player magazine long ago. But I do admit when it first came out I learned alot from it. Mostly gear related stuff. Hey there was a time that I didn't know the difference between a speaker cable and a shielded guitar cable. I think it was a much better magazine when it only came out 4 times a year. I kept my subscription for awhile after I felt I had outgrown it just because I had been with it from the beginning. One day it came and I was reading an article that David Hungate wrote where he made a statement about Rush Limbaugh listeners not being very intelligent. That pretty much made my decision for me to drop the mag. Gee David your a freekin' COUNTRY bass player not a rocket scientist exactly yourself. I've seen him on TV a couple of times since then with his sourpuss face acting like he's having no fun playing. When I buy a magazine about bass I want to read about Bass not someone political views be they left or right.

Originally posted by rllefebv I think that BP is a GREAT bathroom mag. I keep about a dozen in the cabinets in each bathroom... Whenever I'm 'resting' for a significant amount of time, out comes a BP. I kinda think they're like a Reader's digest in that a few months down the road, you can re-read an interesting article and pull something new out of it... YMMV

-robert

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I agreed with the first TWO sentences of your post, but then I realized that you were going in a different direction than I might have.

(Wiping recycled lunch off my chin...) Ummm - yeah, this last issue (with Marcus Miller in it) was the most useful one I've received in the past 6-7 months I've been getting it. Other than that, I'm quite disappointed in it. They could do so much more, but they just don't. I will likely not renew. Between the many ads, most of the articles on equipment seem like yet more ads. The main thrust of it seems to be to sell more stuff. Unfortunately, some people seem to fall for that hard sell. I find most commercial magazines are basically marketing arms for industry - they get people ing about buying stuff for their favorite hobbies (whatever it may be - there's a magazine for it) and to spend more money in an attempt to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for more and "better". It's consumerism gone crazy. Blechh. End of rant.
- Mike

Joe Nerve, I'm glad you posted that. I thought it was just me. I share all your sentiments regarding BP, and dropped my sub a couple of years back. I still give it a flick thru once in a while in a book store, but I wont buy one anymore.

I've been a subscriber since it's inception and also sub to Guitar Player since the early '80s. Bass Player has gotten pretty useless (except for the bathroom idea), especially if you look at the amount of info guitar players get every month in GP. I'm finally to the point where I'm completely happy with my gear and not really looking for anything more. I'm also not really interested in what's being done by most of the bassists they profile, so the thing has little value. I actually find the letters more interesting than anything else, and I can get all that on Talkbass. I imagine I won't re-sub. I also suspect they've been fleecing me on my sub for years by sending the "annual sub notice" every 9 months or so. My fault for not really paying attention, but not sound customer service nonetheless. Speaking of customer service, theirs is pretty abysmal.

Well, why I just resubscribed to another three years is that there are occassioanlly excellent cover stories and a few interesting articles about important, to me, bassists. The workshops offer something worthwhile once in awhile also. I wish I could get to the point that I felt it no longer offered me anything of value, but maybe that willnever happen.

I ignore their CD reviews, because music is so much a matter of taste. I've been burned more than once buying CDS they praised to the skies and I disliked.

I still longingly read about new bass equipment, though I have probably made my last major equipment purchases. Even though I won't buy such gear, it is nice to know what new advances are taking place...if any.

It is true, however, that Guitar Player has had far better issues all along, thicker, more compelling, more informative, etc. Bass Player has always seemed to be the "poor relative."